Now, there are two options. 1) to support this hardware correctly, you'd need to make complex changes to the driver. In this case, I cannot see how it is the Linux' developers' "fault" that this doesn't work. It would be great to have a driver, but it depends on information that Lenovo doesn't give out. Or 2), it is trivial to make a driver, e.g. you just have to look for a certain ID. In this case, I would also blame Lenovo or MS, for there would be no reason to bock AHCI to "ensure a good customer experience" etc.
Whether this situation has come from malice or not, I don't care very much. Anyway, I think it is up to Lenovo to provide a solution (a BIOS update, a Linux driver, or information neccessary to write a driver).
Now, is it a conspiracy or not? I'd say the most likely option is carelessness. Maybe this happenend: "Shall we set this to AHCI or RAID? Currently it is set to RAID and works fine." - "Do we need AHCI?" - "Nah, Windows 10 runs fine, maybe for some older OSes" - "We don't care about those, just leave it on RAID. And while you're at it, comment out the AHCI option."
Did MS give any instructions to Lenovo to block Linux installs? Maybe not specifically, but we have to remember this is a "Signature" edition laptop. (There was the accusation that this only effects the signature edition and not other editions, which would be particularly damning btw..) I wouldn't be surprized if there was an agreement like. "The partner (Lenovo) shall install any crapware on Signature edition laptops. They shall not not preinstall other OSes. And they shall not offer support on installing other OSes." -- Which would be entirely reasonable for a special "Windows Signature" edition laptop.
Or, alternatively, they removed a firmware setting that makes their hardware work less well and didn't think about Linux at all.
Writing a piece of code that resets that one particular variable on each boot?
Sorry, but that's just nasty. There is no reason to do that if the goal is just to provide best experience on supported OS.
Although I agree that it's unlikely this was targetted specifically against GNU/Linux and other OSes. The most important thing would be that Windows 7, 8 and older won't boot anymore.
I don't believe it's accurate to say there's "no real reason", it seems like enforcing this behaviour is very much aligned with the goal you've posited.
This is under the assumption that this was indeed done for the purpose of ensuring Intel specific drivers are used for power management purposes.
Hiding the option from BIOS menu is absolutely enough to "ensure Intel specific drivers are used for power management purposes". It would be annoying, but workaroundable. There is no real reason for anything more, aside of being able to get months of complains about not releasing a one line fix allowing your customers to use your hardware.
It absolutely is not enough, because I can come up with a single contrary case.
If this change was made in a BIOS update, simply hiding the option would leave some users stuck in the "wrong" setting forever. So one might write some code to flip it back at the same time.
This is the simplest way of fixing the problem. It doesn't need any assumption of maliciousness or incompetence. It's just unfortunate for Linux users, since they clearly didn't get any consideration when this fix was written, that's all.
Aside of that, this couldn't even be a change made in BIOS update, because every OS installed earlier, including preinstalled Windows, would stop booting without being provided with Intel driver.
I guess switching modes, a la progressive enhancement, is impossible with disk access then??
There's only so many ways you can slip and slide on this ;-).
Why should a commercial company be forced to provide support for a platform?
If they advertise the hardware as supporting Linux then sure they absolutely should be required to support it. If they don't, then why should they have to support it?
But then I reserve the right to be indignant about this. And I also think it is a bit stupid:
Lenovo had a reputation for having serious business Laptops. They cared about power-user customers who wanted to configure everything, and they had good Linux support.
Either they messed up technically - they did not know the effect this small change would have on Linux support. No problem, can happen, but is still a bit stupid. Or they messed up business-wise, by knowing this change would disable Linux, but not considering that important. I believe this is a much stupider screw-up.
It's like you buy one of these modern crossover trucks, and then find out you can't use it off-road in the desert. Of course, 99% of customers will use them in urban and light rural traffic, and only rarely will they be used off-road. But part of the allure of such a vehicle is that you could.
I don't believe that moustache-twirling executives are staging a conspiracy to kill Linux. But I do think Lenovo has lost their attention to detail that made them so special, and I can no longer recommend Lenovo products without hesitation, like I used to, which is a bit sad.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_Thinkpad_Yoga_26...
Their laptop brands are VERY distinct, and have been for a long while. Thinkpad is the brand that you should recommend for Linux users, not Lenovo in general.
Here's Debian: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/X205TA
Here's Ubuntu (this is a very long thread): https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2254322
There's a video on youtube of a school tech support guy who has a bunch (149) of ASUS X200 to image the drives from a USB drive, and that involves updating the "bios" and then editing the bios settings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yectQ5MeS_Y
tl;dr: it's not fun on any of these netbooks.
The only issue I've ever had with Thinkpad laptops was the Prime Nvidia/Intel video card switching... which is very similar to this in that it just wasn't supported by the drivers.
I see that Dell just had a big expansion of their Developer Editions... good for them! But it still appears that a fresh install of Ubuntu takes manual configuration of video drivers and power managment, meaning that they haven't figured out how to really make embracing Ubuntu smooth.
But that does not make it a conspiracy by MS or Lenovo.
it is a commercial decision. companies get to make those
consumers then get to choose whether to buy their stuff
but it's not a conspiracy.
I would hate to send him unprepared into the wild with a Lenovo.
Every OS they support costs money in developer time. It's a commercial trade-off what Operating Systems to support.
Put it this way, do you see lenovo or Dell or HP developing drivers for OpenBSD? there's no commercial ROI on that, so they don't
In this case it would appear that Lenovo don't think there's a commercial reason to help out with Linux drivers.
It would be interesting to see how this is achieved in other pc's in the signature edition range : https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/categor...
Because it's support for installing an OS, which is not the same as supporting an OS. The OS installation itself is unsupported.
Users running an unsupported OS is cheaper than users running a prescribed, supported OS, problems with which generate support calls.
Supporting Linux is part of what I'm doing here at my job, in a company that makes SoC's. The customers want a base platform (Linux-based) with board support, packages, a toolchain and so on. That's "Linux support".
"This is not locked down, so you may install Linux on it" is not Linux support.
I must have missed the post where somebody advocated having troops parachute into Lenovo's head office and round executives up at gunpoint. Could you let me know who was advocating the use of force?
Not being able to change the OS on a laptop severely reduces its aftermarket value too. My laptop originally ran Windows. I bought it second hand to run Linux on.
Unless you're under the age of about 25 I'm not sure how you've never once flashed a BIOS unless you aren't in tech. Pretty much every new server from Dell/HP/Cisco/IBM/name your vendor requires a BIOS flash at least once in it's lifetime. Usually at the time of acquisition for HBA compatibility.
I once bricked an X230 with BIOS flashing (through Thinkpad Update). Judging from the forums, I'm not alone.
Indeed you can't install linux on that machine, but that's a technical problem and a deficiency in Lenovo's setup, just not a conspiracy by Microsoft.
The actual reason, some technical firmware/driver minutiae, is exactly the kind of reason that both makes sense and I would not expect a PR rep to know or be able to explain.
That may even be what happened here. They were told "It's happening because we're using Windows X and this makes it runs better". That becomes "It was because that's what Windows needs" or "That's what Microsoft has us do".
The first one is accurate but misleading, the second inaccurate. But I could see either one resulting from that conversation.
Now if the Lenovo rep could cite the rule that MS (supposedly) gave that says "Do things way X" then I would believe them. But "because Windows" alone isn't very compelling.
I tend to not read commments on articles anymore, where Microsoft is blamed for something. Reminds me of Slahdot.
You honestly think that's more likely than, someone made a mistake or said something to close a support call???
We aren't talking about deep dark secrets we are talking about normal privileged company information.
The strange thing in fact is not the employee knowing things not shared with the world its the employee actually disclosing it.
For the CS rep. to know this, all Lenovo CS rep's would have to know.
And not one of them leaked this juicy info. to the press or reddit or anywhere else....
Just doesn't strike me as a likely course of events.
The customer rep gets a cryptic sticker on his desk: "Models 1234S, 3333S: Signature Windows Disk ONLY". If a customer calls asking for a restoration media, they get the correct one. If they call asking for Linux, sorry it is not supported according to my sticker.
I'm just making this up of course, but it is not entirely unplausible to me. In fact I find it more plausible then just an accident. Why would a customer rep just make stuff like that up?
Or Lenovo and MS have a vast conspiracy to use disk drivers to block linux install..
which is more likely.... you decide.
That's very likely.
That's not a vast conspiracy. That would be a pretty quotidian conspiracy. In fact, it would look a lot like the "Winmodems[1]" that were a thing before (and maybe around?) the turn of the century.
Those existed because they made machines marginally cheaper by emulating the modem in software. Which only worked on Windows and caused much gnashing of teeth back when.
I believe Winmodems came to be solely because of cost savings. I also believe that the fact that it was functional exclusively on Win was a second-order effect that approximately nobody in Redmond took issue with.
...As an aside, I'm going to assume consistency on the part of all those who are being snide about customer support folks, and assume you make a point of never calling customer support (I'm not referring to the parent poster here). After all, you can't trust anything those idiots say, so why would you bother?
the customer support bit and wanting to move to the next call is based on my own experience of working in support many years ago, there was a strong temptation to tell the user something to get onto the next call as that was usually your performance metric....
And I'm pretty sure it became well known due to discussions just like this, over time. There was a ton of confusion about it at the time; I'm really not in the mood to attempt to search for 20 year old nerd-grousing, but I remember it from various Linux lists at the time.
And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if some CSR at Best Buy gave bad information about Winmodems, and people like me took the bad information at face value and then got in a discussion about it in some forum...
And the cycle of life is complete.
I'm actually surprised when I see people give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt despite years of building mistrust.
I guess a lot of people are just really naïve sheep. Also, notice how others saying stuff like this here on HN are downvoted into oblivion.
It's probably a tribal mentality: just like people become fans of some sports team (Giants vs. Red Sox) or car brands (Ford vs. Chevy) and develop a religious fanaticism about it, probably the same thing happens with Microsoft and Apple (we definitely see it a lot with the latter). Worse, with MS in particular, a lot of peoples' livelihoods are tied up in the whole MS ecosystem. So perhaps all the pro-MS downvoting and posting is coming from people who've bought into MS, especially for their careers (namely, legions of .NET programmers and MCSEs).
If you actually read the specifics about the situation, you'll learn that the SSD is set up in RAID mode, and the Intel hardware also supports AHCI mode.
Acronis and all other OSes do not have driver-level support for this new experimental RAID hardware at all; they do support AHCI, of course, like they have for years.
The BIOS normally has an option to revert the hardware back to normal AHCI mode, but Lenovo intentionally restricted the Advanced page in the BIOS containing this option (which is available and unrestricted by default in the BIOS code they received from the manufacturer) by adding a goto statement to the BIOS's code.
As far as why Lenovo restricted it, it's likely for the same reason Lenovo was prohibited from preinstalling software. Signature PCs claim to have the "best" performance settings, mandated by Microsoft. If NVMe is superior to AHCI, Microsoft would sensibly mandate NVMe.
That is not true, many users have tried using the very latest bleeding edge kernel. The drive is not detected at all by Linux when it is in RAID mode. The usual fix is to disable RAID mode and just use AHCI. On most sane systems (but not Lenovo), you can do this easily by changing a single BIOS setting.
Also, my understanding is that the benchmarks show no appreciable performance benefits of single-drive SSD RAID over AHCI.
They have behaved in negative ways for a long time they will need to behave differently for quite a long time before they are trusted again.
They have cleaned up many but not all of their behaviors. They are still abusing patents against smaller android distributors. If they care about their patents they would sue Google or the AOSP steering group (or whoever runs it). If they were actually with an open ecosystem they wouldn't be doing those lawsuits.
In the context of Microsoft's behavior, blaming them is not an unreasonable default stance. Though when evidence does come along to the contrary someone holding such a stance must be willing to change it or be wrong.
Most (80%) developer experiences these days are probably limited to their behavior from year ~2008 and onwards.
To be fair, they've responded to my tweets, but only because I have nearly 10k followers.
If it raises the issue of running Linux on laptops, it's fine IMO. And both Lenovo and Microsoft have a lot of accumulated badwill that does not play in their favor. Guilty until proven innocent seems fair here.
http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding-b...
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/19/lenovo-caught-insta...
http://www.techworm.net/2015/08/lenovo-pcs-and-laptops-seem-...
https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/04/critical-security-flaw-f...
There is no good reason for this. Whatsoever.
This sounds like post facto justification on your part. It's entirely reasonable to take the word of a customer support representative. It's also an egregious misrepresentation to paint it as "secret conspiracy", given the phrasing the representative used.
The wording of "secret conspiracy" was inspired by the original posts this morning on this exact subject which cast the matter as exactly that, and it was those posts to which that comment was referring.
The idea that a single customer support representative would know something which was previously unknown and unstated across the positions of two of the largest corp's around seemed unlikely.
What I've been trying to suggest to multiple posters here (and apologies if you think the arguments are circular but people seem to keep bringing the same points up repeatedly) is this.
which is more likely, a mistake from one low-level employee of Lenovo or a deliberate plan by two large corporates to secretly (the use of secret is justified by the fact that it's not their stated position) use the disk driver configuration of a laptop to block alternate OS installs.
really which do you think is more likely?
When you work at a company you have a funny way of finding things out, and you don't say things on forums or elsewhere that you don't mean to say :-).
When somebody tells me something clearly and directly, and why, I tend to believe them. But I'm just funny like that.
It was a shame to see the initial posts this morning hit the top of the page without any more evidence than a single customer support rep. who was unlikely to realistically have inside knowledge of some kind of "secret conspiracy" to block linux installs by Microsoft.